


To Escape Time

by Saesama



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Body Horror, Gen, Tricksters, is body horror the right tag for this?, tricksters creep me out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-10
Updated: 2013-02-10
Packaged: 2017-11-28 21:14:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/678953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saesama/pseuds/Saesama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To escape death, sacrifices must be made. But this isn't worth it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Escape Time

You and your friends are all going to die.

It's a fact of life. People eventually die. Natural state of the universe. But you love all of them so much that it hurts to imagine them dead and mouldering and feeding the grass above their graves. 

You talk to Dave. Dave is frustrated by time, is always trying to beat it, to keep it at bay, with chemicals and glass tubes and moments captured on film. Dave's frustrated and you know the deaths of everyone you care about scares him as much as it scares you.

Dave knows the chemicals to keep flesh vibrant and the rot away. You know how to catch the mind and heart and soul in a cage of silicon and wires. 

You talk and talk and plan and test your theories on stray animals.

You catch Jane first.

She comes out of the process with translucent skin and glassy eyes, but she's vibrant and alive and still Jane, rendered in jewel tones and candy colors and she smiles widely and hugs you. Her flesh holds, augmented by the wires hidden beneath, and she'll never rot, she'll never age, she'll never surrender to time and die.

She laughs more than she used to.

You catch John next and he and Jane caper about, ecstatic in motion though their eyes remain wide and glassy and a little unnerving. You ask Dave about it, if the chemical mixtures usually do that, or if it's because of the wires you have to install so they can see. Dave shrugs that it's probably both and then he asks if it matters because they're both alive and it worked and now all of you can be together forever.

Jane and John catch Jake next. He's scared by them, shouts at you that you're doing something horrible, that they aren't Jane and John anymore. When he wakes up he hugs you and apologizes and laughs and dances.

Jade screams when she sees Jake. You have to repair him after Jade wakes up and she helps you, smiling through her professed remorse. Jake forgives her warmly. They never stop smiling.

Roxy is the first one of them to frown, when she wakes up and you tell her that she'll never be drunk again because she no longer metabolizes food, let alone booze. She gets over it and they all spend a giggly afternoon pretending to be drunk and acting like fools. 

It worries you because your friends have always been a little silly but they're being borderline hysterical and they're getting worse with each new addition. Dave is unsettled, too, but he suggests that maybe mortality weighs heavy on a soul and now that they don't have to worry about dying they feel free. You accept that because they're still them, all of their memories are in place, so what else could it be?

You find Rose in your shared laboratory, going over your notes. She demands to know what happened to all of them, demands to know why you're doing this. You tell her and she cries, tears spilling down her cheeks as she calmly tells you both that you've lost your minds. Maybe you have, but she giggles and kisses your cheek when she wakes up and tells you that she was wrong, that she's never been better.

Dave teaches you his chemicals very carefully. Jane and John snicker into his shoulders and offer to help you. They're so spastic but they perform their tasks well and Dave wakes up.

He's not Dave. 

He has Dave's memories and Dave's thoughts and Dave's eyes but you know him better than anyone else, you know him better than you know yourself and whatever is looking out from behind Dave's dead, glassy eyes isn't Dave. And you're forced to finally admit that Jade isn't Jade, that Roxy isn't Roxy, that whatever resides within your friends is not what should be there.

You hide. Rose finds you.

You run. Jake catches you.

You refuse to reveal how you captured them in circuitry. Roxy and Jade read over your notes.

You try and disrupt the chemical process. Jane and John help Dave thwart your plans.

You wake up, and you understand why their eyes are dead and glassy, frozen wide as if in fear despite their wide grins. Because whatever is moving your muscles isn't you. It has your memories and it has your skills, but it's not you and your eyes reflect the fact that you're trapped in your own body for ever and ever while a capering harlequin doll dances in your place.

Your face stretches into a wide grin, and you reach out to your very best friends, because now you'll all be together and you've escaped time's grasp.

You scream within your prison.


End file.
